Letters to the Editor: Saturday, March 15, 2014

Saturday

Mar 15, 2014 at 2:40 PM

Time for a smarter public safety design

Time for a smarter public safety designTo the editor,Lenawee County is blessed to be served by a dedicated group of public safety professionals providing top-notch fire, police and ambulance service to our community. Our elected leaders seem committed to fund these services and work hard, to try to do more with less. During these difficult times, our elected officials struggle to make ends meet and provide adequate resources for their respective public safety departments, fund road repairs and other necessities.

The structure that we use to manage our public safety system was designed over a hundred years ago, in the age of horse and buggy, with no electricity or other modern communication systems. Due to relative distances, cooperation between entities did not make much sense. Today, central Lenawee (about a 10- to 12-mile distance), is served by at least six separate police department entities and at least five fire departments. Is this the most cost-effective, efficient and sensible way to support the system? If we had to start from scratch to design a public safety system today, would we have as many independent entities for central Lenawee?

Would it make sense to ask our elected officials and our public safety leaders to come together to develop a new, more sensible way to manage public safety in central Lenawee? Would it hurt to take a serious look at ways to cooperate and make the most of limited resources? We all want a competent, professional, well-funded public safety system to service our community. Let’s put our heads together to see if we can find a better way. Other communities have done so. We can too!

Mark Murray Adrian

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